Fran Whiting: If my husband can find time to have an affair, good on him

Frances Whiting says her life is filled with work, children, friends, family, uniform fittings, soccer training, washing … and if her husband can find time for anything else in that busy schedule, well good on him, she says.

FIRSTLY, thank you to all the readers who have written to inform me, following my recent column about my husband suddenly becoming a fitness fanatic, that he is most definitely having an affair.

Thanks too, to a reader named Alfie, who helpfully advised me to get my “own arse down to the gym” as soon as humanly possible, presumably in order to shape up and save my marriage.

Now, I want to reassure you all that John is most certainly not having an affair, and I’ll tell you why.

He hasn’t got time for one.

Frances Whiting: The beautiful secret my mum shared with me

The art of doing nothing is harder than you think

You thought I was going to say something like: “Why go out for sausages when he’s got rump steak at home”, didn’t you?

Now, while I think we all now that is undoubtedly true in this particular case, I would never say that because I hate that phrase – along with one about not buying the milk if you’ve got the cow at home.

And no, I have not idea why so many sayings about men, women and relationships have a distinctly bovine feel to them either.

Columnist Frances Whiting. Picture: Mark Calleja

Instead, the real reason I know my husband is not having an affair is that I know that man is 24 hours a day, because I have cleverly implanted one of those home tracking devices in him.

No, I haven’t – I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t.

But here’s the thing, our own tiny corner of the universe is filled with work and children and friends and family and sign-up days and school uniform fittings and soccer training and driving lessons and washing and ironing and cooking and cleaning and dog walking and swimming meets and library visits.

Like so many other people, we live and die by the calendar on our fridge, and our lives _ rightly or wrongly – are dictated by the activities we have signed both ourselves, and our children, up for.

This means where our conversations once meandered pleasantly between the state of the world, movies, travel and where we were going to go for dinner, all our conversations now go like this “Can you do the 4pm pick-up if I do the 7am drop off and the ju jitsu run if you do swimming training and I don’t go to book club on Thursday night if you can miss tennis on Saturday?”

Oh yes, it’s a hot bed of excitement at our place, let me tell you.

Columnist Fran Whiting at home. Picture: Mark Cranitch

But this also means that I know where John is from the moment he leaves the house at 7.30am, picks up his coffee at his favourite cafe at 7.45am, arrives at work by 8.30, has a day filled with meetings and running events, eats lunch at his desk or on the run, battles the traffic to get home, pick up one or more of the kids to take to one or more activity, comes home, puts the dinner on, picks me up from work, goes home, picks up the kids from their activities, comes home, helps with the dinner/washing up/homework, so frankly, if he can find a window of opportunity in there to have a work out with Trixie la Boom Boom behind the step machine, then I say good on him.

Now, you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get my own arse to the gym.